Tuesday in Mooseville, Bonus Edition – Public Law 110-82 cont’d 11/19/19

November 19, 2019 DoReMI It Takes a Village 1

Continuing where I left off in the morning post…

2015
Commemorates the contributions of the Kahnawake Mohawk and Mohawk Akwesasne communities to “high iron” construction work and the building of New York City skyscrapers. [The tradition of Mohawk high iron working dates to 1886, when the Dominion Bridge Company started a bridge from the Kahnawake Mohawk community across the St. Lawrence River.]

The design depicts a Mohawk ironworker reaching for an I-beam that is swinging into position, rivets on the left and right side of the border, and a high elevation view of the city skyline in the background.
2016
Commemorates the contributions of the Native American Code Talkers in World War I and World War II. [Native languages came to play an increasingly vital role in the U.S. war effort in both World War I and II.]

The design features two helmets—one in the shape of the U.S. helmets used in World War I and the other in the shape of a World War II helmet. Behind the helmets are two feathers that form a “V,” symbolizing victory, unity and the important role that the code talkers played in both world wars.
2017
Sequoyah, inventor of the Cherokee Syllabary. [Sequoyah adapted writing to the Cherokee language by devising symbols for each syllable.]

The design features a profile of Sequoyah writing “Sequoyah from Cherokee Nation” in syllabary along the border of the design.
2018
James Francis “Jim” Thorpe (1888-1953) [Born near Prague, Oklahoma, in what was then Indian Territory. Raised in the Sac and Fox tribe, he was given the native name Wa-Tho-Huk, meaning “Bright Path.” Jim Thorpe became possibly the most versatile natural athlete of the early 20th century.]

The design depicts Jim Thorpe, while the foreground highlights his achievements in football and as an Olympian.

2019
American Indians in the Space Program [Native Americans have been on the modern frontier of space flight since the beginning of NASA. ]

The design features Mary Golda Ross writing calculations. In the background, an Atlas-Agena rocket launches into space, with an equation inscribed in its cloud. The equation, denoting the energy it takes to leave Earth and reach the orbit of a distant planet, represents her important contributions to the space program. An astronaut, symbolic of Native American astronauts, including John Herrington, conducts a spacewalk above. A group of stars in the field behind indicates outer space.

And yes, there is a 2020 Native coin coming out, but I think I’m going to write about the featured Native at a later date. She just happens to be one of Chelsea Clinton’s gutsy women, so her story will be told in a SHEnanigans post in the near future.

About DoReMI 165 Articles
Now a Michigander, by way of Ohio, Illinois, Scotland, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania. Gardener. Sewer. Democrat. Resister.

1 Comment

  1. Thank you and the more I checked the links the more I could see why you didn’t want to base your “history” on this governmental source. The Code Talkers always get my attention. The evil irony – right up there with drafting Japanese-Americans from internment camps – of men who’d been beaten and abused for speaking their languages, of America’s all-too-successful insistence on eradicating Native languages, celebrating the life-saving work in WWII done by those who were determined enough to keep their languages…And to read in the link that there were supposedly well under a million Natives left in the 1940s – the myth of “gee we’re sorry but they’re extinct now” is still a meme. sigh. But thank you again for the posts and the links. {{{HUGS}}}

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